Sloppy sixth sinks Phils en route to eighth straight loss

Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Jake Diekman sits in the dugout after being pulled during the sixth inning of a baseball game against the Detroit Tigers in Detroit, Sunday, July 28, 2013. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

DETROIT — There are losses, there are bad losses, there are blowout losses, and then there is what happened at Comerica Park Sunday afternoon.

“What were we saying yesterday?” Charlie Manuel asked writers after his Phillies unraveled in an epically awful sixth inning and fell, 12-4, to the Tigers.

What was said after Saturday night’s 11-0 loss was that things couldn’t get worse for the Phils (49-56).

There goes that theory.

“You can’t sugarcoat it,” said Michael Young, who might have played his last game in a Phillies’ uniform. “Whatever could possibly go wrong, went wrong.”

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“It’s embarrassing to see that,” Carlos Ruiz said. “It’s almost every day.”

“That was embarrassing,” Jimmy Rollins, the longest-tenured Phillie said. “Yeah. I’ve seen a lot, but I haven’t seen that.”

Another veteran, closer Jonathan Papelbon, had his own feelings on the matter, choosing a writer of his liking to walk in the hallway of the clubhouse with him as he unleashed an expletive-soaked damnation of the situation.

The situation includes eight straight losses and humiliation after humiliation as the front office faced a hellacious 72 hours to figure out how much selling they could do to grab younger talent.

What everyone witnessed was a meltdown in the bottom of the sixth that led to eight unearned runs crossing the plate. There was a dropped can of corn by a rookie outfielder, a rookie reliever completely incapable of fielding the position, another rookie reliever who threw a 3-0 fastball five feet wide of the plate for ball four, and a grand slam that at least put the Phils out of their misery by taking away any dispositions to think a comeback was doable away.

With the Phillies mired in a losing skid and a probable sell-off in the coming days, Manuel gave Steve Susdorf his shot Sunday.

It started well, as he led off the top of the fifth with his first big-league hit, a double into the right-field corner, then scored to give the Phils a 3-0 lead. At that point it seemed he might be a feel-good tale amid a miserable end to July.

However, the Tigers tied the game in the bottom of the fifth against Jonathan Pettibone.

Then, in the sixth inning, came the type of highlight Susdorf doesn’t want to see replayed on sports roundup shows.

After a pair of poor field-and-throw plays by overhand-throwing-disabled pitcher Jake Diekman loaded the bases, Don Kelly hit a one-out routine fly ball to Susdorf in left. At first he parked under it, then his feet began to shuffle. Then the ball clunked off his glove and to the ground.

The television shot of Susdorf after play showed him shaking his head, saying, “Wow,” repeatedly.

The go-ahead run would have scored, anyway. But the extra out would lead to an avalanche that resulted in eight unearned runs crossing the plate. The mess that followed featured right-handed reliever Luis Garcia — another underdog tale who had performed well in his first handful of outings — having no control over his fastball. Complicating matters was a high throw to the plate by Darin Ruf on a bases-loaded grounder to first that resulted in another lost out.

The inning was capped when Garcia fell behind 2-0 to Jhonny Peralta and the Tigers shortstop jumped on the finely-served fastball down the middle and smoked his fourth career grand slam.

“I’ve seen some sloppy innings before,” Manuel said, “but that one was rough — really rough.”

The last time a team allowed eight unearned runs in an inning, it took place in the same ballpark, with the floodgate-opening gaffe happening in the same place. The Tigers gave up 10 runs in the seventh inning to the Yankees April 28, 2009, with eight of them unearned after a sacrifice fly was dropped in left field.

From there it was only a matter of ending the misery. The last out came, fittingly, when Susdorf struck out on a check swing. It was the supreme nightmare to conclude a nightmarish 10 days for the Phils.

“When we play that bad, yeah, I’m upset, Manuel said. “In some ways it’s embarrassing to me...When we don’t play right and we play bad — very bad — it bothers me.

“It’s hard to know what I’d say. They see it. They know...This is the major leagues, man. You’re supposed to be able to play and play right.

“I hope we can play better than this. We better play better than this, I can tell you that,,,I think I’m ready for us to play a helluva a lot better than we’ve seen.”